"MC Emily" wrote in message
...
: Natalie wrote:
:
: We had a very eccentric old Polish man living round the corner to us
: who collected rubbish; stored it both inside and outside his very
: large house. This was such a problem that they made a television
: programme about him. The council cleared all the rubbish from his
: garden and as soon as they finished he started collecting again. He
: died last year...
:
: I watched every programme featuring that poor man, including the recent
one
: after his death. I felt his biggest 'problem', if you can call it that,
was
: not his garden but his mental health problems and yet no one took that
into
: account (that was certainly the impression given by the programmes
although
: it could of course have been different in reality). The council's attempt
: at getting him to clear his rubbish was as dictotorial as the Germans had
: been to him during the war. The collecting of rubbish and other things
was
: an subconscious attempt to regain control of his life and retain things
: rather than have them forcibly taken away. Rather than help this poor man
: they actually made his troubles worse. Rather than eccentric, a better
: description of this man would be mentally ill. Of course, I don't doubt
: that his habits caused problems for his neighbours and I wouldn't want to
: live near it either but it's just a shame that people didn't see the man
: amongst the rubbish.
:
: Jaqy
:
:A friend of ours worked with the son of that nice old man. He was such
a nice old man that his wife had walked out on him and his 3 children
wanted nothing to do with him. To put the record straight - he had
never even been in the armed services. Yes, it was patently clear that
he had mental health problems, but as he was a danger neither to himself
nor to anyone else, he could not be sectioned under the Mental Health
Act and would only receive treatment if he were to seek it on a
voluntary basis and that would be extremely unlikely, considering he
refused help from all and sundry and couldn't see that he had a problem.
I think the man from the environmental health services had the patience
of Job and could not be faulted on what he did.

K